A Dance for Him (14 page)

I blush. “You can’t imagine that I’d have - that I -”

“That you were providing extra services at the club? God, I certainly hoped you weren’t. But I did think you couldn’t possibly have had no experience at all. I mean, you’ve got all these boys after you in class, I simply couldn’t imagine that a beautiful girl like you could have gotten to senior year without sleeping with anyone. Especially since you were so sensual when you were dancing …”

“I was thinking of you. Not long after I met you I realised that all I had to do to behave sexily at the club was to think about you.”

He looks a bit surprised, then beams as he wipes his hands on a paper towel and strides over to me.

Before I can even figure out what he’s up to, he’s kissing me as his hand slides up my bare thigh.

“You’re a very sexy girl, Paige,” he murmurs, “and if it weren’t for the fact that dinner will be ready in a minute, I’d totally fuck you right here over the counter. I’m going to have to make sure whatever’s on the menu next time you’re here for dinner will take a lot longer to cook.”

“I’m getting your barstool
really
wet,” I whisper.

“Good. I can’t say I mind the idea of you getting your sweet juices all over the barstool. On the contrary, if you keep coming over, as I hope you do, I imagine that won’t be the last piece of furniture around here that you’re going to get wet.”

He winks and then walks off to the stove to deal with the pasta.

“How is it?” he asks after we’ve settled down at the dining table and I’ve taken my first bite. “It’s not very fancy, I know …”

“Oh, it’s delicious,” I stammer, a bit taken aback by the idea that I might even find fault with the food for being insufficiently fancy.

I mean, I don’t even look at the fresh pasta section in the supermarket, only in the dry pasta section, let alone think about ingredients like pine nuts and fresh basil - not when it’s so much cheaper to put together a simple tomato sauce or buy jarred pasta sauce when it’s on sale.

This is almost like a whole different world, the exotic world of artisanal food and olive oils in expensive-looking bottles - but there’s no question it’s absolutely delicious …

There’s a part of me that’s almost worried that at this rate I might get too used to all this fancy stuff that I certainly wouldn’t be able to afford on my own, not for a while, if ever.

But it’s just one part of me, and it’s currently being overridden by the part of me that’s telling myself to stop with the worrying and just enjoy the company of the gorgeous man who’s sitting across from me.

A gorgeous man who’s currently looking
very
pleased indeed, and whose foot is brushing mine rather deliberately under the table.

“I’m glad you like it,” he says, and for a moment we fall into our familiar routine of staring at each other with big goofy grins on our faces, before I break the silence.

“It’s quite wonderful. Do you cook a lot?”

“Yes, a fair bit. I like it. You seem surprised?”

“Oh, I guess I didn’t think that a Morland would ever need to learn how to cook.”

He laughs. “My dad was disinherited by
his
dad, you know. So I had a mostly normal upbringing, except when we visited my relatives on that side of the family, and it was like a whole different world. Anyhow, my grandfather ended up leaving me a trust fund and this house, but that wasn’t until I’d already started teaching here, and I certainly didn’t expect it at the time. Neither did some of my relatives, for that matter, and believe me when I say that there was much gritting of teeth in certain quarters for a while …”

“Ohh,” I coo sympathetically, thinking that it’s no wonder he seems so charming and unaffected. “But what happened with your father?”

“With dad? You mean, why he was disinherited? Well, he didn’t want to take over Morland Schaeffer despite being the eldest son, he wanted to be an academic. I gather grandpa wasn’t too happy about that, because he was supposed to be the golden boy, the smart one in the family. And then he went off and married a fellow professor rather than some heiress or other, I don’t think grandpa was very pleased about that either.”

“So, do you have any siblings?”

“No, I think dad was quite relieved when I outgrew the yowling baby stage, I don’t get the impression he’d have wanted to deal with that all over again. What about you?”

I shake my head. “None either. Dad left when I was four and mom never remarried.”

“That’s too bad,” he says sympathetically. And then, after a pause, more brightly: “So I suppose we’re both only children, aren’t we?”

I can’t help but smile at this sweet and probably quite artless attempt to find common ground with me - sweet because so incongruous, in a way, given who he is and who I am ...

“So you’re planning on law school, is that right?” he continues after a pause. “I remember you saying something about saving up for it.”

“Oh, planning might be a bit of an overstatement. I’ll probably take a couple of years off to work and save up, and then I’ll figure what my options are. To tell the truth, I’d prefer to get into a graduate program in English, but it’s not like there are that many professional opportunities, so I figure law might be more practical.”

“A graduate program in English, eh?” he echoes, raising his eyebrows slightly and looking somewhat thoughtful.

“Yes, what was it like for you?”

He looks taken aback for a moment, then laughs.

“Well, I must say nobody’s ever asked me that question in the context of my experience as a PhD student,” he says, a naughty glint in his eye as he caresses my foot with his, and I blush once I realise he’s referring to sex - a reaction which seems to please him.

“It was all right, I suppose,” he continues. “To be honest, I think the best part of it was the time I spent writing my novel, so I may not be the best person to ask about that. Although I must say that if you ever ask anyone else about it, I hope you won’t be sitting across from them in their kitchen and wearing their shirt while you do so …”

I turn even redder. I’m not sure if it’s due to the (absurd!) idea that he might think I would do something like that with anyone else, or if it’s due to my excitement that this isn’t the first time tonight that he’s implied a desire for exclusivity on his part.

Of course, it could also be because he’s staring at me again with renewed intensity, even as he’s steered the conversation back to sex …

“I don’t think there’s any danger of that,” I mumble, slightly awkwardly.

“You’re very beautiful, Paige,” he says, reaching for my free hand and kissing it. “I think any man who found himself in that position with you would consider himself a very lucky man. And yes, that includes myself.”

He thinks he’s the lucky one?
I think, slightly bemused, especially because he seems perfectly sincere - I know it’s the sort of thing that could easily sound like a line, but he sounds quite serious, and there’s something quite heartfelt about his expression …

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

She’s looking at me as if in happy wonderment, as though she can’t quite believe what I’ve just said.

But it seems to have worked, my plan to change the tone of our meetings, to convince her that I want to be more than just a sugar daddy or a fuckbuddy. She’s now so much more relaxed, seems so much more at home now.

And fuck if I don’t just love seeing her in that shirt of mine. It’s like being able to embrace her even when I’m not actually doing so.

Of course, I won’t deny that there’s also the additional frisson of feeling that she’s symbolically agreed to being my girl …

I know it’s crazy, and maybe it’s wrong to want what I want. Before I met her I would have thought a relationship like ours to be terribly wrong.

And yet …

Not only do I want her desperately for my own, I can’t and don’t want to struggle with myself any more.

Not when she’s shown sign after sign of wanting more from me.

How sad she looked last week, how her voice trembled when she said she wasn’t here for romance. It was as though she was afraid I wouldn’t want her for more than sex, and so had to bravely pretend that she didn’t want anything more than sex either.

I can’t keep hurting her, just out of some misguided sense of ethics on my part. It’s not like there’s any significant conflict of interest anyway - her work’s so unambiguously excellent, her academic record so pristine, that nobody could imagine that she’d need to trade sex for grades. And she’s so intelligent, so mature for her age.

Maybe if we’d never met in the club, maybe if she’d never given me that time in the VIP room, maybe if I’d never proposed this deal to her - maybe then it would be different.

But all that happened, and maybe the choices I made weren’t really the most appropriate ones, but I’m not going to say I regret anything.

Even with the emotional turmoil of wondering whether I was doing the right thing, I haven’t been this happy, this
alive
, in a long time … if ever.

And
she
looks happier too - happier than I’ve seen her ever. She always seemed glad to see me but there was always something nervous, even slightly brittle about her.

Not any more.

Right now she looks radiant, glowing.
Softer
, somehow. As though she trusted me.

Such a beautiful thing, to be trusted like that.

Can what we’re doing be so very wrong if we’re making each other so happy?

“So, Paige, how do you feel about tiramisu for dessert?” I ask, after we’re both done with our food. “I have to admit, I didn’t make this, but there’s a café nearby that makes excellent tiramisu, so I went and bought two portions earlier today.”

“That sounds lovely,” she says, smiling. “Of course,” she adds a bit cheekily afterwards, as I’m getting the box out of the fridge, “I suppose you
did
expect me to stay after all, if you bought two portions?”

I laugh and kiss her as I set the container on the table. “Well, I figured that I’d at least be able to console myself with the extra portion if you declined to stay.”

She smiles affectionately as I dish out her portion.